Lakhs of housing units to be constructed in Outer Delhi areas

Lakhs of housing units to be constructed in Outer Delhi areas

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, chairperson of DDA, on Friday gave his approval to the land pooling policy. LG’s nod has brought land pooling — combining contiguous plots — and the huge potential of creating more housing in Delhi closer to reality. Senior DDA officials say that a few operational issues have to be ironed out and the area of land pooling notified, which will take a month’s time. The policy can come into effect after that.

The policy had been notified by the government of India in September last year and applies to areas in southwest and northwest Delhi. These include outer Delhi areas, including most of Kanjhawala, Narela and Najafgarh, and villages like Mehrauli, Bijwasan, Chhatarpur, Ghitorni, Bamnoli, Fatehpur and Khanpur.

Around 24,000 hectares or 59,000 acres will be available for commercial exploitation through public-private partnership. DDA estimates lakhs of dwelling units will come up in these areas through cooperative group housing societies. Officials say these societies will have the extra 400 FAR.

According to sources, the policy will apply to two categories of land parcels. One between two and 20 hectares and the other to land measuring more than 20 hectares. Those who wish to pool their lands for residential purposes in the first category will get 43% of their land back; for the second category, 53% will be returned.

The policy comes with a rider. Sixty per cent of people (with a 5% margin either way) in a sector will have to agree to pool their land for Delhi Development Authority to accept their parcels and develop the infrastructure and return the developed land to the investors. Officials say they are still working on fine-tuning some operational issues.

“There are issues like stamp duty collection. Since the land is first submitted to DDA which develops and returns it to the investors, someone made the point that stamp duty will be collected twice. We are working to waive stamp duty in both cases so that the process becomes simpler,” said a senior Authority official.

Another matter was notification of the areas where land pooling will come to effect and the final notification by Delhi government. The whole process is likely to take a month to be completed.

“We should be in a position to begin implementing the policy by the end of the year. We are also in process of engaging a project management consultant to help us create a smart city in the areas that we will notify for land pooling,” said Balvinder Kumar, vice-chairperson, DDA.